Software Update: Warzone 2100 2.1 beta 4

Warzone 2100 is an RTS game similar to Earth 2150, among others. It was originally developed by Pumpkin Studios and published in 1999 by Eidos Interactive for both PC and Playstation. Eidos Interactive released the source code of Warzone 2100 under the GNU General Public License in late 2004 and launched the Warzone 2100 Resurrection Project. The developers of this have since made many changes and improvements to the original game. A few days ago, the fourth beta version of Warzone 2100 2.1 has been released and has the following announcement:

Hi folks,

Since a couple of minutes ago, we have finished the release process for the 4th beta of 2.1: 2.1_beta4. “Beta 4?” you might ask. Yes this beta is labeled beta 4. Because we started a release cycle for beta 3 some months ago, but found out (luckily in time) that it contained too many bugs to be released. But since we had already tagged beta 3, we wish to prevent confusion arising from two versions of Warzone with the same version number. Hence beta 4.

a source tarball and Windows installers (debug installer) are available. MacOS X and GNU/Linux binaries will follow soon. Some of the new features this version introduces:

• Colored mouse cursors (in game only, not in menus). Turned off by default since it can cause problems on some systems.
• “Map Preview” button added to the multi player/skirmish lobby, including ability to preview starting positions.
• A ‘Ready’ button that all players must press in order to start a multi player game.
• Support changing the language via the options menu.
• Units gain speed increase with experience.

We also have a large amount of bug fixes. You can find the full list of changes in the changelog.

Known issues

The known issues from beta 2 remain:

• Save games from the 2.0 series cannot be loaded with this version. (NOTE: We do not intend to “fix” this, as we are breaking compatibility with the previous save game format.)
• The multi player code has been improved slightly since beta 2, but running out of sync is still possible. Though it barely happens anymore, and the differences tend to be significantly smaller.
• The game in general still aborts a lot in debug builds due to failed assertions.

More Good News

Some other great news is that we have finally received permission to distribute the FMVs and the original sound track under the terms and conditions of the GPL. We have also been confirmed in our assumption to use these works, and the rest of the source code and data, under the conditions of the GPL version 2, or at your option any later version. We now have an updated readme and if you’re interested you can also read up on some history about the new licensing conditions.

For this we have to thank “Jaywalker” (alias Jason W.) at Eidos, several involved members of our community and surely a lot more people at Eidos and Pivotal Games.

So again, thanks to all people involved! This may just be, after the original open source release, the most significant step for Warzone’s future.

Some Sad News

Then lastly, some sad news, which we received several days ago: Pivotal Games will be closed. Some of you may know, that Pivotal Games is the successor of Pumpkin Studios, which are the original creators of Warzone 2100.

So I wish to take this opportunity to wish all guys and gals from Pivotal Games the best for the future! As long as Warzone 2100 survives, it will stand as a testament to you’re ability to create great games!

Vriendelijke groeten,
The Warzone 2100 Resurrection Project